Russian social network ordered to act on piracy

A Russian social network, notorious for streaming pirated music, has been ordered by a court to use technology to prevent future copyright infringement.

Record labels Warner and Universal sued VKontakte (VK) in 2014, demanding the removal of the pirated music and 50 million rubles ($1.4m) in damages.

The court ruling goes one step further by asking it to install preventative technology.

In July, VKontakte reached a settlement with Sony Music.

The Russian social network is something of an anomaly in the market, according to the body which represents the music industry, IFPI .

It told the BBC that VK is one of the few widely used social networks to still make pirated music available.

It had requested that the social network be forced to use fingerprint technology which could match uploaded music against a file of copyright music to filter out all pirated tracks.

It is unclear yet what technology will be used by VK but IFPI said that the ruling was good news for rights holders in Russia.

"This is a very important and positive decision for the Russian music market and for music creators in Russia," said IFPI chief executive Frances Moore.

"VK's infringing music service has been a huge obstacle to the development of a licensed business in Russia, making available hundreds of thousands of copyright-infringing tracks to more than 70 million daily users."